


Maple Sugar Crusted

by imaginarycircus



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Pining, UST, bribing people to be your friends with baked goods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6605755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarycircus/pseuds/imaginarycircus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bitty is going to figure out what Jack's favorite pie is if he has to feed him every kind of pie in existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maple Sugar Crusted

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Check Please! fic. I just read all the comics and am combing through the extras. I'm a little nervous that this is all wrong.

There are many, many things people don’t know about Jack Zimmerman. There’s the handsome, stoic team captain with a bumpy past. There’s the college hockey bro. And there’s actual Jack. The person Jack is when no one is looking. The Jack who won’t step on cracks in sidewalks, rescues bugs and puts them outside, and won’t go through a door when there’s anyone he can hold it open for. The guy who swears under his breath in French when he can’t find his keys. You might not hear it unless you’re paying attention.

Bitty’s been watching Jack carefully for a while because he doesn’t want his team captain to hate him. And if he can’t do it with hockey, Eric Bittle is going to bake his way into Jack’s good books.

You learn a lot about people when you feed them. Ransom makes a beeline for baked goods and dances around behind Bitty if something isn't ready. Twice Shitty declared one of Bitty’s pies worth marrying, but Ransom recorded him and sent it to Lardo. He never said it again. Holster gets a dopey look when he smells caramelizing sugar. No one has ever seen Johnson eat pie, but he leaves thank you post its with smiley faces on the counter for Bitty.

No surprise that Jack was harder to crack. Bitty vowed he’d bake something that made Jack have a visible emotion. A visible and pleasant emotion. If Bitty could do that then he’d know that Jack doesn’t hate him completely. Jack politely eats whatever Bitty’s baked. Thanks him. But Jack never makes the face--the _omg bliss_ face. It becomes a point of pride. Because why else would Eric Bittle want to see Jack Zimmerman make that face?

Bitty worked through his repertoire of fresh fruit tarts, his MooMaw’s famous peach pie, and on to chocolate cream pie, and chiffons. By second semester he had every one in the Haus pegged, but Jack remained a pastry mystery.

The semester ended on a low note. Bitty went home with a concussion and orders to rest. He read extensively about food in Montreal and vowed to señor bunny that he would never put ketchup or fries covered in gravy and cheese curds in one of his pies. Bitty lay on his stomach in his bedroom, the curtains drawn against the beating sun. Even with two fans blowing on him from different directions he was sticky and hot. His mother promised the AC would be fixed by the end of the week.

He thought cool thoughts. Being out on the ice in the morning. Your breath coming out as white smokey clouds. The crunch of frost covered grass across the quad. Bitty scrolled through photos of Montreal. A rainy November day, cobblestone streets, a warm cafe, thick sweaters, cold hands, and sharing poutine with... well, with someone...

Bitty moved into the Haus when the fall semester started. Fall in Massachusetts means apples. Chowder was uber excited to pick apples. Ransom and Holster decided they should go because neither of them had picked apples and you had to do it at least once in New England, right?

That night Jack ate a slice of pie while listening to Lardo and Shitty flirt, or whatever it is they do. Everyone knows they have an intense bond. No one knows quite what that bond is. And that’s cool. Not everything needs labels. Though it’s hard to ignore the way Shitty quietly watches Lardo sometimes, like he’s seeing a unicorn or something. Jack's fork scraping apple pie remnants off a plate snapped Bitty out of his thoughts.

“Is there any more pie?” Jack asked, looking exceptionally hopeful.

“No, that was it. Sorry.”

So apple was good, but it wasn’t enough. How did you make an apple pie reach down into the soul of brooding hockey player and shake it until he felt joy? Ugh. Canadians. In Bitty’s experience the two best things from Canada (not having been to actual Canada) were gut punchingly handsome hockey players and maple syrup.

That had to be it. The experiments began.

Maple syrup in the apple filling was too sweet. Syrup in the crust burned too easily. He tossed the burned one and pawned the sweet one off on his French class.

The first cold snap of the season--Bitty made chicken pot pies with puff pastry lids. He was rolling the extra pastry scraps into sugar so he could bake off some elephant ears when he wondered if he couldn’t do something similar with a pie crust. Maple sugar crust.

A package arrived two days later. Bitty was belting out Taylor Swift while thin slicing apples. He’d taken extra care with the crust. Hand cut all the shortening and butter into the dough. Let it rest overnight in the fridge. He rolled out the bottom crusts to fit into the pie pans. The dough was resilient. Silky. Not too dry and not sticky. He carefully cut the lattices and pressed them into maple sugar. It looked a lot like raw sugar, but tasted the way he imagined Jack might. He pushed those thoughts aside and carefully wove the lattices and put the pies in the oven. He washed dishes and went back to imagining what Jack tasted like. Not that he’d ever find out.

The pies were absolute works of art. Bitty took 37 photos and picked one to put on instagram. He hovered over them and watched them cool, nervously tapping his feet and not listening when anyone wandered in and asked him questions. Jack was late. Bitty knew Jack’s schedule. Not because he’s a creeper, but because he organizes meals. Gotta know when people are around if you want to serve them a hot meal.

Finally. Finally. After 10 pm, Jack trudged in, looking worn out. He stopped dead in the middle of the hall and turned slowly to look into the kitchen. Bitty realized a moment too late that he was brandishing a serrated knife and grinning wildly. Way less Ina Garten and way more _The Shining_ than he'd planned.

“Hey, Jack. Want some pie?” Bitty did his best to sound nonchalant and not like he’d been plotting ways to crack Jack Zimmerman’s shell so he could see what was underneath.

“Yeah. It smells amazing.” He drifted into the kitchen, a slightly dreamy look on his face. Bitty felt better and better about this experiment.

Bitty handed a slice of pie to Jack, their fingers grazed. They both jumped.

“Sorry,” they said in unison and looked away from each other. Jack drew in a deep breath, but Bitty kept his eyes on the pie in front of him. He hadn’t even tasted it yet. He wanted Jack to be first.

He looked up when he heard the fork tap gently against the plate. Bitty watched the forkful of pie slip into Jack’s mouth. Jack’s face transfigured. His cheeks flushed. His eyes slowly closed. He made a very slight noise. Not quite a moan. Not a grunt. Kind of a whimper, but a manly one. Bitty would have punched the air if he wasn’t frozen in place watching Jack Zimmerman slowly drag the fork out from between his closed lips and then lick the side of it. God. This was so much more than he’d expected. MooMaw had nattered about her TIME OF LIFE and hot flashes, but Bitty was pretty sure young men didn’t get those. The roasting sensation was everything she’d described, mixed with a whole bunch of exciting itches and sensations that MooMaw wouldn't understand and that he could never, ever tell her about. 

They stood there awkwardly. Not talking. Jack holding his fork in midair and looking at Bitty in the strangest, most adorably shocked way. Bitty stood mesmerized by a few stray maple sugar crystals on the bottom edge of Jack’s lower lip. Bitty pressed his finger into some sugar on the edge of the pie pan and licked it. Jack dropped his fork.

“Here. I’ll get you a new one.” Bitty bustled around. Handed Jack a clean fork. Began drying dishes that were already completely dry. 

Lardo and Shitty appeared. “Can we finally eat the damn pie?” Shitty asked, but Lardo was already cutting a piece. She hopped up on the counter and took a bite.

“Oh my god. Why is this so much better than every other apple pie?” Shitty poked her until she fed him a bite.

Jack had finished his slice and was eyeing a second one. Bitty cut it for him and said, “It’s maple sugar crusted.” 

Bitty went to bed that night knowing Jack Zimmerman had a favorite pie. Knowing that Jack hadn't know his favorite pie before he'd come home. Knowing that Jack could light up like 4th of July fireworks in the right circumstances. Time to stop thinking about it because it would lead nowhere good. Bitty tucked his thoughts and the seedlings of feelings away. Her told señor bunny that Jack would yell at him tomorrow during practice and everything would go back to normal. It just might be a few weeks before Bitty could look at Jack’s mouth and not want to...


End file.
